Cadernos de Etnolingüística (ISSN 1946-7095)
volume 3, número 2, maio/2011
http://www.etnolinguistica.org/issue:vol3n2
Linguistics, archaeology, and the histories of language spread:
the case of the Southern Jê languages, Brazil
In this paper I discuss the relationship between archaeology and historical linguistics, and present a case
study from my own research on the diffusion of the Southern Jê languages. For a long time,
archaeologists were not aware of the fact that the Kaingang and Xokleng languages were related to the Jê
languages of Central Brazil, and proposed an autochthonous origin for those southern groups. A new
generation of archaeologists, aware of the relationship between Kaingang and Xokleng and the Jê
language family, focused on the identification of their migration. The emergence of the so called TaquaraItararé archaeological tradition around AD 220 was thought to signal the arrival of Jê speakers to the
south. In my research I analyzed assemblages of Taquara-Itararé pottery from different areas of Southern
Brazil, combined with the available radio-carbon dates, and with the most recent data on subsistence. The
chronological and cultural frame resulting from these data corroborates previous hypotheses that the
appearance of pottery coincides with a process of population growth fostered by intensive Araucaria pine
nut exploitation and maize-tuber agriculture, which rapidly led to the filling up of the landscape by these
new settlers and to territorial circumscription—the formation of more restricted and territorial social
boundaries, sensu Carneiro (1970). Such circumscription is best evidenced by the development of local
pottery styles, as I could identify. This economic and demographic process is in agreement with the
“wave of advance” model for linguistic change: a population, bringing a new subsistence technology,
grows to the point of displacing the previous inhabitants of a region. On the other hand, the yet few
known cases of local adoption of agriculture and pottery by pre-existing inhabitants of Southern Brazil
can be explained by evoking social and ideological factors possibly linked to the spread of a ritual
complex typical of Jê societies, manifest in the construction of ceremonial centers with earthworks and
burial mounds. This is in agreement with the “recruitment” model, according to which a language
perceived as more prestigious spreads through language shift together with certain social and ideological
features of its speakers. To explain the separation between the Southern and Northern/Central branches of
the Jê family, similar archaeological studies and syntheses must be conducted in Central Brazil.
by Jonas Gregorio de Souza1
1. Correlating historical linguistics and archaeology
Historical linguistics and archaeology are very close fields: both may deal with the
reconstruction of a past for which no written records are available. The difference is one
of subject: while the linguist compares languages in order to establish the origins,
development, movements, and contacts between different communities in the past, the
archaeologist does the same by using material remains. As a matter of fact, both
1
Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE), Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Email:
[email protected]. I would like to thank Gislene Monticelli (PUCRS) and Igor Chmyz
(UFPR) for granting me access to the collections hosted by their universities, as well as for their
assistance during my research. I would also like to thank Eduardo Ribeiro (University of Chicago) for
encouraging me to publish this paper, and for the many insights on the relationship between
archaeological and linguistic data on the spread of Jê languages. Thanks are also due to the editors and
reviewers, for their corrections and suggestions. Fabiana Merencio (UFPR) has provided me with most of
the dates and locations of the sites in Paraná state. I thank Silvia Copé (UFRGS) for supervising the
research and for listening to and discussing all of my hypotheses and conclusions, even when she
disagreed. Finally, I enormously thank Francisco Noelli (UEM) for reviewing the paper and helping to
improve its quality with valuable suggestions, corrections, and contributions.
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Cadernos de Etnolingüística, vol. 3, n. 2, p. 1-16, maio/2011
reconstruct “sequences of events, the one linguistic and the other material-cultural”
(Spriggs and Blench 1998:29).
The hypotheses of historical linguistics can be tested through archaeological
research, and archaeologists often look towards historical linguistics in order to make
sense of their data. An example is the use of radio-carbon dating, which linguists now
prefer instead of the glottochronological methods to date particular events in the past
(Blench 2004). However, this relationship may turn to circularity, with archaeologists
using linguistic models to explain their data, not knowing that these models were
actually based on archaeology in the first place (Spriggs and Blench 1998). The best
example is that of the Indo-European expansion, linked to the emergence, in Europe, of
the Corded Ware and Beaker cultures, as well as the Kurgan mounds of the Russian
steppes, an association frequently repeated by both linguists and archaeologists. In his
classic study of the problem, Renfrew (1987) demonstrates that the archaeological
cultures commonly associated with the Indo-European migration—especially the
Beaker culture—are actually the result of local processes of cultural change.
Archaeologists are now much less confident in associating one particular artifact
assemblage with one specific ethnic or linguistic group. That does not mean that we
cannot correlate archaeological and linguistic data. Renfrew (1987) suggests that we
should think of the processes by which a language family spreads, and then try to
identify the material correlates of these processes in the archaeological record. Although
he associates the spread of Indo-European languages with the diffusion of agriculture—
a solution that is not accepted by most archaeologists or linguists—Renfrew makes the
important point that linguistic diffusion is often linked to social, demographic, and
economic processes that can be identified by archaeologists (1987:272).
2. Archaeological data on the origin and spread of the Jê linguistic family
The first attempt to correlate language families of the South American lowlands with
archaeological cultures was that of Brochado (1984). He was particularly interested in
the histories of migration and diffusion of these languages, and with the identification of
these histories through archaeology. Although there has recently been a renewal of
interest in his models for the expansion of the Tupi and Arawak languages, mainly
motivated by new research in the Amazon basin, the same cannot be said of his models
for the expansion of the Macro-Jê languages. It has become necessary, however, to pay
attention to the latter models, because now we have much more archaeological data, and
the linguistic classifications are more accurate. For instance, Brochado (1984) does not
consider Kaingang a member of the Jê language family, although he includes it in the
Macro-Jê stock; he also doubts the Macro-Jê affiliation of Maxacali and Puri, labeling
them “Ancient East Brazilian” languages.
In spite of these inaccuracies, most of the correlations proposed by Brochado
still hold true. Figure 1 shows the distribution and available radio-carbon dates for sites
of two archaeological cultures that I would like to use as examples: Aratu-Sapucaí and
Taquara-Itararé. The distribution of Aratu-Sapucaí sites in part coincides with the
territory of modern Northern and Central Jê speakers. These sites are identified by their
characteristic pottery style2 and settlement layout. Settlements of the Aratu-Sapucaí
2
Modern Jê speakers have abandoned pottery manufacture, leading Lowie (1946) to state that the pottery
sherds found throughout Jê territory were evidence of prior occupation by a different people. This
position is no longer held, since there is now evidence that Jê speakers prior to European colonization not
only made pottery but also lived in permanent farming villages (Wüst and Barreto 1999).
Souza: Linguistics, archaeology, and the histories of language spread
3
culture present a number of pottery sherd concentrations, probable remnants of house
floors or trash middens, arranged in a circle around an empty space (Wüst 1983; Prous
1992; Wüst and Barreto 1999). This pattern clearly resembles the ethnographic
Northern and Central Jê villages, with their houses placed in circle around a ceremonial
plaza. Some of the archaeological villages, however, are much larger than their
ethnographic counterparts, with up to 90 houses arranged in two concentric circles
around a plaza 400 m. wide (Wüst 1983), reminding of 19th century accounts of large
Kayapó villages (Turner 1979:149).
Figure 1. Aratu-Sapucaí and Taquara-Itararé archaeological traditions, with their territorial extension
and some associated dates.
Brochado (1984:196) suggests that the large territory covered by the Aratu-Sapucaí
culture and its general similarity throughout this territory point to its expansion through
massive movements of migrants. Although some isolated very early dates exist for this
archaeological culture, most of the sites are dated after AD 600, and the true expansion
of this culture happens after AD 1,000, when it reaches its maximum territorial extent
and number of sites (Brochado 1984:139-155; Prous 1992; Robrahn-González 1996:9091; Oliveira and Viana 2000; Oliveira 2005:40-41; Morales 2008:35). According to
Eduardo Ribeiro (pers. com.), such a recent and rapid spread would account for the high
similarity among the Northern and Central Jê languages. However, if there is a
straightforward correlation between Aratu-Sapucaí sites and pre-Columbian Jê speakers,
this would leave unexplained the situation of Northeastern Brazil as well as the coast,
where Tupí and Macro-Jê languages, but no Jê languages, have been recorded in spite of
the many Aratu-Sapucaí sites found in these regions.
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This lack of coincidence between archaeological and ethnohistorical records does not
happen in the Taquara-Itararé area. This archaeological culture coincides so precisely
with the territory of modern Kaingang and Xokleng that “Southern Jê” is often used
instead of the label “Taquara-Itararé” (e.g. Noelli 1999). The most typical
archaeological sites are pit house villages, burial mounds, and geometric earthworks
where the diagnostic Taquara-Itararé pottery can be found (Prous 1992; Beber 2004).
There is strong technological continuity between this archaeological pottery and the
pottery of 19th and early 20th century Kaingang and Xokleng (Silva 1999; Miller Jr.
apud Noelli 1999:294). The persistence of mound building for burial purposes (Métraux
1946) is another bond between pre-Columbian and modern Southern Jê groups, just as
the ring village shape, which was retained among their northern and central Brazilian
relatives.
3. The Southern Jê languages: linguistic and archaeological hypotheses for their
diffusion
The relatively small area, and the well established continuity between an archaeological
culture and a language family make the Southern Jê branch an ideal case study for the
correlation between linguistic and archaeological data. Many earlier archaeologists had
considered the Taquara-Itararé culture a local development. The archaeologist Oswald
Menghin3, for instance, suggested that the appearance of pottery and polished stone
tools associated with burial mounds and earthworks in the province of Misiones was the
result of a process similar to the Neolithic of the Old World, a local evolution of the
previous inhabitants of the region. He associated those archaeological remains with the
Kaingang, who according to his vision would not have migrated to the region but rather
evolved locally through the process of neolithization he described (Menghin 1957; see
Noelli 1999 for a thorough survey of the history of research on the origins of the
Southern Jê; also Araujo 2007).
Menghin’s model was later adapted to Brazilian archaeology. Schmitz (1988)
proposed that agriculture and pottery had spread among hunter-gatherer groups by
influence of Tupi-Guarani speakers, although he now believes the development of
agriculture and pottery to be an autonomous process due to a disparity in dates between
the first appearance of these traits in Southern Brazil and the first Tupi-Guarani
migrations to the area (Schmitz and Becker 2006). Ribeiro (2000) presented a similar
model, according to which pre-pottery populations adopted pottery and agriculture from
an unknown source (possibly from the mound building cultures of the Uruguayan and
Southern Brazilian plains), developing into the Taquara-Itararé culture. Thus, both
Schmitz (1988) and Ribeiro (2000) initially followed Menghin’s conclusions, believing
in an autochthonous origin for the Southern Jê speakers—that is, for those authors the
modern Kaingang and Xokleng would be the descendents of the very first settlers to
Southern Brazil, who locally evolved into potters and farmers due to some external
influence. According to Noelli (1999), the autochthonous hypothesis is the result of the
isolation of the archaeologists working during the 60s and 70s from the wider field of
Amerind studies, including anthropology and linguistics.
In the field of linguistics, Davis (1966) demonstrated that the Kaingang language
belongs to the Jê family, albeit a distant member, since it shares about 40% of cognates
in the Swadesh list with the other branches, while Northern and Central Jê languages
3
Menghin was an Austrian archaeologist and member of the Nazi party. After the 2nd World War, he
emigrated to Argentina where he resumed his career.
Souza: Linguistics, archaeology, and the histories of language spread
5
share over 60% of cognates among themselves. Urban (1992) later used these figures to
estimate on glottochronological grounds that the Southern Jê separated from the other
members of the family about 3,000 years BP. He also suggested that the headwaters of
the São Francisco and Araguaia rivers were the family’s probable place of origin. In
anthropology, the study of Jê societies was brought into relief by the “Harvard Central
Brazil Project”, whose members invested in the analysis of some typical features of
those groups, such as the division of the tribe in moieties and the village layout with a
circle of houses around a ritual plaza (Maybury-Lewis 1979). Interestingly, the
Kaingang were not included in those studies, because they were then considered
completely acculturated. However, years before, Nimuendajú ([1913]1993) had already
described a system of exogamic moieties for the Kaingang, connecting this and other
characteristics to the Central Brazilian cultures. Anthropologists are now confident in
correlating several features of Kaingang social and ritual organization with the Central
and Northern Jê groups (e.g. Veiga 1994, 2000; Silva 2001).
The recognition of a Central Brazilian origin for the Southern Jê languages and
cultures was taken into account by a new generation of archaeologists in the formulation
of their models. Noelli (1996, 1999, 1999-2000) correctly criticizes the isolation that
resulted in the archaeologists’ interpretations of a local origin for the Taquara-Itararé
culture. According to the author, an interdisciplinary approach that benefits from the
amount of data now available makes it clear that “the general lines of the sequence of
occupation of Southern Brazil by pottery-making cultures are no longer hypothetical”
(Noelli 1999:291). Taking anthropological and linguistic data into account, Noelli
attempts to update Brochado’s model, proposing that the origin of the Taquara-Itararé
culture must be sought outside Southern Brazil, since this archaeological culture is
related to the Southern Jê speakers, whose language originated in Central Brazil—where
a very similar and more ancient pottery, called Una, is found. Later, Araujo (2007)
focused on São Paulo state, pointing to some early dates that would confirm this
region’s status as a migratory route. According to the author, there should be a
continuity in material culture between southern Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul
states, confirming the relationship between Una and Taquara-Itararé cultures, a
hypothesis to be tested as more research is done in São Paulo. These are examples of
how archaeological data are being recently integrated to a wider linguistic and
anthropological scenario.
But how can we truly integrate linguistic and archaeological data without falling
into circular reasoning as mentioned earlier in this paper? Spriggs and Blench (1998)
suggest that one must compare hypotheses or models arrived at through independent
data, presenting each of these sets of data—linguistic and archaeological—separately.
Moreover, any scientific research must be problem-oriented, and I believe in this case
there are two fundamental questions to be posed: 1) What are the different processes by
which a language comes to be spoken in a place? 2) What are the archaeological
correlates of these different processes? As for the first question, Renfrew (1987) and
later Blench (2004) present useful models for language spread. Of these, I would like to
emphasize the following: initial colonization, demic diffusion, and elite dominance.
During initial colonization, a group brings with it its language to a previously
uninhabited region. After that, there are two possibilities: continuous development, i.e.
the language first brought to the region continues to be spoken until the present; or
language shift to another language. The first colonization of Southern Brazil dates to at
least 11,555 ± 230 BP (cf. Dias 1994 for a discussion of dubious earlier dates), a date
too early to coincide with the arrival of Jê speaking groups. Moreover, there is strong
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Cadernos de Etnolingüística, vol. 3, n. 2, p. 1-16, maio/2011
evidence that this first wave of migrants came from the south, maybe from Patagonia,
and not from Central Brazil, where Jê languages are thought to have originated. This
southern origin for the first settlers is evidenced not only by the earlier dates found in
Patagonia, but also by the continuity in the material culture as one progresses towards
north, across Uruguay, finally reaching Southern Brazil where some typical “fishtail”
and triangular lithic arrowheads of Patagonian style can still be found, at least in one
case contextualized in the deepest level of a rockshelter with continuous later
occupations (Dias 1994:149-150; Nami 2007).
The arrival of Jê-speaking populations (ancestors to the present-day Kaingang
and Xokleng) to a previously-settled territory would have led to changes in the
linguistic landscape as well. Such changes can happen in many ways, but the most
likely scenarios tend to involve the elite dominance and demic diffusion models. The
elite dominance model, as presented by Renfrew, presupposes language shift, with a
small but well-organized external force dominating a local population and imposing its
language. The diffusion of Latin by the Roman Empire and of Quechua by the Inca
Empire are good examples of this process.
The remaining model, demic diffusion, might be the most appropriate to explain
the spread of Jê languages to Southern Brazil. In this model, a new population arrives at
an already inhabited region, but brings with it some new technology which allows it to
grow and, eventually, displace the earlier inhabitants. This is an adaptation made by
Renfrew of the “wave of advance” theory first proposed by Ammerman and CavalliSforza (1971) to explain gene distribution patterns of Europe as a result of population
displacement in the beginning of the Neolithic thanks to the new technology of farming
introduced by Middle Eastern migrants. Farming allowed these migrants to maintain a
higher population density than their forager predecessors, consequently leading to
fissions and territorial expansion in pursuit of arable land.
Bearing in mind the different models for language change as well as the
discussion about the origins of the Southern Jê peoples, I dedicated myself to the
analysis of collections of Taquara-Itararé pottery in the following institutions:
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Pontifícia Universidade Católica
do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), and Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR). I gave
priority to collections which came from well-dated contexts in order to construct a
chronological and spatial frame of reference for Southern Jê history, i.e. to present an
archaeological sequence that can be compared to the linguistic data. I will now present
and discuss the results of my research.
4. Reassessing the data
The result of the analysis of the pottery from the selected archaeological sites (RS-PE12, RS-PE-22, RS-139, RS-UP-255, RS-UP-256, RS-AN-03, RS-A-2, T131, SC-AG40, PR-FI-145, PR-SA-8, PR-MR-39, PR-UV-17, PR-CT-93, and PR-BS-2; see their
location in Figure 3a) from the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul
indicated strong technological similarities among the assemblages. These are related to
the temper4, which is always sand; to the shaping by coiling5; and to the incomplete
4
The temper is the antiplastic component which is added to the clay before shaping the vessel. These
components reduce the plasticity of the clay, preventing it from breaking while being shaped or burnt
(Shepard 1956).
5
Coiling is the method by which the potter gives shape to a vessel by adding successive coils of clay
(Shepard 1956).
Souza: Linguistics, archaeology, and the histories of language spread
7
oxidation6 during burning. I believe this points to a common technological source.
However, when one considers the visible features of the pottery, it becomes clear that
there are local styles. In Figure 2 these styles are exemplified by vessels from Paraná,
Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. The differences are clear at once.
Figure 2. Reconstructed vessels that illustrate the main stylistic differences among Taquara-Itararé
pottery assemblages, and some drawings of rim profiles and vessel reconstitutions distinctive of each
style. All photos were taken by the author. The first vessel belongs to a collection hosted by the Centro de
Pesquisas Arqueológicas, UFPR. The other two vessels belong to collections hosted by the Núcleo de
Pesquisa Arqueológica, UFRGS. All drawings were made by the author.
The first style is defined by a large number of ovoid vessel shapes, with inflected
contour, constricted, and with expanded rims. There is little or no plastic decoration.
The earliest site with this pottery style is the Sengés rockshelter in northern Paraná,
dated 1,790 ± 210 BP, cal. AD 2-530 (Parellada 2005:42). The second style presents a
large number of cylindrical vessels, with slightly inflected contour, and non-constricted.
Plastic decoration appears more frequently as zigzags or other forms of incisions. The
earliest date for this style comes from a surface site in northeastern Rio Grande do Sul
dated 1,810 ± 85 BP, cal. AD 90-330 (Beber 2004:51). The third style is defined by a
large number of cylindrical vessels, with simple contour, non-constricted, and with
6
While the vessel is being burnt, the components of the clay react with the oxygen, giving the vessel a
light color. When this reaction is incomplete (due to a short burning time or to the lack of oxygen
available in the atmosphere), a dark core remains, visible in the sherd edges when the pottery is broken
(Shepard 1956).
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Cadernos de Etnolingüística, vol. 3, n. 2, p. 1-16, maio/2011
expanded rims. Plastic decoration reaches its peak, with cord and basketry impressions,
punctations, and nail impressions. The earliest date for this style comes from a pit house
in northeastern Rio Grande do Sul: 1,520 ± 90 BP, cal. AD 430-610 (Beber 2004:53).
The distribution of these styles, based on the assemblages that I analyzed and on
published vessel reconstitutions, is plotted in Figure 3, as well as the earliest dates7 for
the Taquara-Itararé culture in Southern Brazil. The boundaries of the three styles
apparently coincide with marked differences in settlement patterns: style 1 is found in
areas where surface sites dominate, with few or no pit houses, and cemeteries with
many mounds; style 2 is found in a region with high density of sites, many pit house
clusters, and large ceremonial centers composed of geometric earthworks, as well as
individual enclosed mounds; style 3 is found in an area that encompasses both the
highlands, where large, isolated, dispersed pit houses dominate, and the coast, where the
pottery appears in small camps, suggesting seasonal movements (Souza 2009).
From the data presented so far, we may conclude that pottery-making
experienced a rapid diffusion throughout Southern Brazil8, given the common
technological traits of all assemblages and the fact that the earliest dates from both the
northern and southern limits of the tradition are broadly contemporary, making it
difficult to point to a single direction of diffusion. Not much later, a number of well
defined local styles emerged. These geographically circumscribed styles point to
reduced territories and networks of interaction among local groups, a situation that is
expected after a population has grown and filled up most of the available land
(Parkinson 2006; Aldenderfer 2008). The overall scenario is very similar to that
predicted by Renfrew’s demic diffusion model. Since his model is one that gives much
weight to subsistence strategies, we should ask if there is any new subsistence
technology that might have allowed for Taquara-Itararé population growth.
7
All the dates mentioned in this paper were calibrated using the software Calib 6.0.1. The original dates
were compiled from the following sources: Beber (2004); Araujo (2007); Chmyz et al. (2003, 2009);
Parellada (2005); DeMasi (2005); Müller (2007); Rogge (2004); Schmitz et al. (2002); Copé (2006).
8
The remote origins of Taquara-Itararé pottery are debated, but Brochado (1984) already suggested that it
originated from the so called Una pottery of Central Brazil. Una pottery is technologically and
stylistically very similar to Taquara-Itararé pottery, and it is also much older, appearing in sites dated to at
least 410 BC (Prous 1992:333-345; Robrahn-González 1996; Oliveira and Viana 2000).
Souza: Linguistics, archaeology, and the histories of language spread
a
9
b
Figure 3. a) Location of the archaeological sites whose assemblages were analyzed. b) Distribution of the
assemblages according to style, together with the approximate limits of each style and earliest dates for
the Taquara-Itararé culture in different areas of Southern Brazil.
Agriculture has long been considered a recent acquisition for most of the Jê groups (e.g.
Lowie 1946). Archaeology has proved this to be inaccurate. Ethno-historical accounts
point to at least five Southern Jê cultigens: manioc, sweet potato, cará (Dioscorea sp.),
peanuts, and five varieties of maize (Noelli 1996, 1999-2000). Of these, maize leaves
the most distinguished archaeological signatures. The first evidence of maize in a
Taquara-Itararé context came from the Matemático rockshelter, where maize, gourd,
and cotton were found together with the burials of 65 individuals, as well as TaquaraItararé pottery (Miller 1971). Because maize—first domesticated in Mexico—is a grass
that originated in a dry neotropical environment it leaves a specific signature in the
carbon content of the bone collagen of individuals who ate it along their lives9. This
signature is present in the collagen of individuals buried in rockshelters of Santa
Catarina between AD 720 and AD 835 (DeMasi 2007)10. Another important piece of
evidence comes from burials in coastal shell mounds associated with Taquara-Itararé
pottery. Burials from two sites dated between AD 485 and AD 745 presented, in their
teeth, phytoliths11 and starch grains of maize, sweet potato, and Araucaria pine nut
(Wesolowski et al. 2010).
The archaeological sequence and data on subsistence lead to the conclusion that,
by the first or second century AD, Taquara-Itararé pottery was being made in many
different places of Southern Brazil. In a few centuries, it rapidly spread, covering most
9
This happens because the class of plants to which maize belongs produces four carbons during
photosynthesis – they are called C4 plants. The consumption of these plants is reflected in the proportion
of C13 to C12 isotope in bone collagen, which varies, for maize eaters, between -16% and -9% (DeMasi
2007).
10
The C13/12 values are -10,766% and -15,149% (DeMasi 2007).
11
Phytoliths are silicified particles produced by many species of plants. The different shapes of these
particles allows the identification of plant genus and species (Piperno 1998).
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Cadernos de Etnolingüística, vol. 3, n. 2, p. 1-16, maio/2011
of Southern Brazilian Highlands as well as the coast. There is increasing evidence that
maize and tuber agriculture spread with it. Much weight has been given to Araucaria
pine nuts, an abundant resource in the highlands, for the subsistence of these groups.
Paleobotanical data point to an expansion of Araucaria forests after AD 1,000
throughout Southern Brazilian Highlands, coinciding with an exponential increase in the
number of Taquara-Itararé settlements (Iriarte and Behling 2007). However, TaquaraItararé pottery was already widespread by then. The combination of agriculture and
intensive pine nuts exploitation fostered a population growth not seen before in this
region. The increase in the number of sites after AD 1,000 is the peak of this process,
related to the expansion of Araucaria forests both as consequence and cause, since these
forests were intensely managed by humans (Noelli 1999-2000). As the landscape
became filled up and territories became more circumscribed, local pottery styles
developed. Circumscription is used here in the sense of Carneiro (1970) to describe the
process by which the territories of the socio-political units of a region become
increasingly reduced due to environmental or, in the case analyzed in this article, social
reasons, such as population pressure which limits the amount of land available to each
group.
Thus, the archaeological sequence for Southern Brazil shows similarities with
Renfrew’s “demic diffusion” or “wave of advance” model, with rapid population
growth led by a new subsistence technology. Even if this economic and demographic
process was an important vector for the spread of Southern Jê languages, there might be
other causes as well. To argue for a single cause for the spread of agriculture and
language seems now unrealistic, and the wave of advance model has been challenged in
European archaeology by studies that emphasized the active role played by Mesolithic
foragers in the diffusion of the “Neolithic package”. The continuity in the lithic
assemblages, the evidence for clearance and incipient agriculture already in the late
Mesolithic, and the peculiarities of the many different “Neolithics” of Europe point to
more complicated processes which might have involved both migrations and changes
among indigenous foragers (Zvelebil 1998; Thorpe 1996; Whittle and Cummings 2007).
Renfrew’s explanation for the spread of Indo-European languages has also been
challenged by new data and new approaches presented by Anthony (2007). Anthony
proposes a modified version of the elite dominance model, labeled “elite recruitment”.
According to it, in an environmental scenario of expansion of the steppes, the speakers
of Proto-Indo-European, represented by several Bronze-Age cultures of the steppes,
would have made small-scale incursions into Eastern Europe. The local late Neolithic
inhabitants would have benefited from alliances with those invaders—whose
advantages were not only technological (domesticated horses and wagons) but also
social and ideological. The elite from the steppes might have established patron-client
relationships with the late Neolithic farmers, adopting from them traits like pottery
styles but also introducing in Europe the elaborate rituals of burial under mounds
(kurgans) and the horse symbolism. Anthony suggests that in this moment of broad
changes in Europe the language of the riders from the steppes, a form of Proto-IndoEuropean, would have been more prestigious and would have gradually been adopted
throughout the continent. Thus, even if the emergence of the early Bronze Age cultures
of Europe is in a large degree a local process, as Renfrew argued, this process has been
triggered by contacts with foreigners and could correspond to a moment of language
shift.
Bearing this discussion in mind, we should ask if there are any signs of
continuity with previous forager populations in Southern Brazil, and if there are social
Souza: Linguistics, archaeology, and the histories of language spread
11
and ideological factors that could have played a role in the spread of Southern Jê
languages together with the economic and demographic advantages of farming and
intensive pine nut exploitation. Unlike the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Europe, the
appearance of Taquara-Itararé pottery in most parts of Southern Brazil actually
represents a rupture in settlement patterns and lithic assemblages (Dias 2003), making it
difficult to argue for continuity in local traditions. There are, however, a few exceptions.
Especially meaningful are the data from the coast, where a process very similar to that
of Europe seems to have taken place: palaeogenetic analyses revealed that, while at
some coastal sites the appearance of pottery coincides with population substitution, in
other cases pottery was adopted by indigenous populations through diffusion (Neves
1988). New researches in the Southern Brazilian Highlands also complicated the
scenario, with the discovery of a lithic assemblage typical of early hunter-gatherer
groups in a pit house site in Santa Catarina, suggesting the incorporation of those early
settlers into the recently arrived Jê communities (Schmitz et al. 2009). Although these
are still isolated cases, future research may reveal this to be a more common pattern
than previously thought.
These archaeological data corroborate previous hypotheses based on Kaingang
mythology and social structure. A persistent feature of Central and Northern Jê groups,
the dual organization, has been maintained among the Kaingang, whose communities
are divided in two exogamic patrilineal moieties. Each moiety also has subgroups of
primarily ritual function. According to Veiga (1994, 2000) and Silva (2001:130-141),
this complex organization is the result of incorporation and establishment of alliances
with the early inhabitants of Southern Brazil to the Jê communities as they expanded
throughout the region, a story that is preserved in Kaingang creation myths. Assignment
to one of the moieties or subgroups is most important during rituals, especially during
the funerary ceremonies, and the “foreign” character of some subgroups is expressed by
certain burial taboos (Veiga 1994, 2000; Silva 2001:130-141).
Is it possible that the complex social structure and the elaborate rituals typical of
Jê groups helped those newcomers to Southern Brazil to incorporate previous
inhabitants and build alliances with some of them, thus promoting the diffusion of a Jê
language throughout the region? These could be the social and ideological motivations
of language spread that were missing from my explanation (pages 6-10 above).
The archaeological expression of those motivations can be seen in the diffusion,
together with Taquara-Itararé pottery, of an elaborate ritual architecture that includes
geometric enclosures, avenues, and burial mounds. First noticed in the province of
Misiones, Argentina, this kind of site was later identified also in the Brazilian states of
Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul (Iriarte et al. 2008; Chmyz 1968; Rohr
1971; Ribeiro and Ribeiro 1985). New research conducted at these sites has recovered
evidence of ritual and feasting, such as ovens for cooking large amounts of meat,
vessels for drinking maize beer, lip plugs, burials, and clay figurines (Iriarte et al. 2008;
DeMasi 2005). In the city of Pinhal da Serra, state of Rio Grande do Sul, there is a
profusion of such sites. The largest site (RS-PE-29-1) is a circular earthwork with 80 m.
of diameter, surrounding an apparently leveled ceremonial ground (Figure 4a). There
are also examples of isolated mounds, such as the 2 m. high “Chief’s Mound” (Figure
4b). Smaller mounds and enclosures are more common, such as the site RS-PE-29-3,
composed of two circular earthworks, both with 20 m. diameter, each surrounding a
burial mound (Figure 4c). In one of the excavated mounds we have uncovered two
burials: one of them was a funeral pyre with large burnt logs and a few calcinated
12
Cadernos de Etnolingüística, vol. 3, n. 2, p. 1-16, maio/2011
bones, all surrounded by burnt earth; the other was a “bundle” of calcinated bones, the
secondary burial of an individual cremated somewhere else (Figure 4d).
Figure 4. Ritual sites of the Taquara-Itararé culture in Pinhal da Serra, RS. a) Major ceremonial
enclosure, site RS-PE-29-1; b) The “Chief’s Mound”; c) Small mounds and enclosures, site RS-PE-29-3;
d) Plan of the excavation in the mound of the site RS-PE-29-3, showing the funeral pire (left) and the
bundle of calcinated bones (right). Photo b taken by J. Christopher Gillam. All topographies, plans, and
drawings made by the author. Figures a, c, and d reproduced from Souza and Copé (2010:110-111).
As mentioned earlier in this paper, the burial under mounds is a practice that was
maintained among historical Kaingang and Xokleng groups, although only the latter
practiced cremation (Métraux 1946). There are no historical parallels for geometric
earthwork construction, although the historical Xokleng still cleared large ceremonial
grounds for their initiation ritual, a major ceremony for which all the dispersed bands
gathered. Analogy with this ritual, which involved the piercing of the boys’ lips in order
to insert a plug, was used by DeMasi (2005) to interpret the large enclosures. The effort
dispended in the construction of such large earthworks, together with the many residues
of feasting in their interior, all suggest that they were regional ceremonial centers where
a large but dispersed population might have periodically aggregated to perform
collective rituals (DeMasi 2005; Iriarte et al. 2008; Souza and Copé 2010).
Thus, agriculture and intensive pine nut exploitation might have fostered the
population growth which led to the first spread of the Southern Jê languages, in a way
similar to Renfrew’s demic diffusion model. On the other hand, we must acknowledge
that the ritual complex that spread with the Jê-speakers might have been an attraction to
the previous inhabitants of Southern Brazil, and might have made possible their
incorporation into the typically Jê moiety and subgroup social structure, in a process of
Souza: Linguistics, archaeology, and the histories of language spread
13
recruitment similar to that proposed by Anthony (2007). This whole process, rather than
only pottery as an ethnic or chronological marker, is what must be taken into account to
explain the spread of the Southern Jê languages. The dates for the beginning of this
process are later than Urban’s estimate of 3,000 years BP, but we are dating the spread
of Southern Jê languages throughout Southern Brazil, not their separation from the
Northern and Central branches, which, to be understood, demands a similar attempt to
correlate linguistic and archaeological data in Central Brazil. This case study is one
example of how archaeological and linguistic data can be compared to construct a
synthesis. It is my belief that archaeologists and linguists working on other branches of
the Jê language family or Macro-Jê stock should work together in order to produce
more accurate reconstructions of past social and linguistic trajectories.
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Submitted on May 14th, 2010
Revised on December 2nd, 2010
Published on May 13th, 2011